


Pieces In Hand

by Lunatic_Lullaby



Category: DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Zach accepts his polyamorous boyfriend, but is still a jealous hot mess, discussion of Dick/Tim, discussion of Tim/Various, nothing can stop the power of the Kon/Tim bromance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatic_Lullaby/pseuds/Lunatic_Lullaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon can't stop being Tim's guy just because he has some snarky new boyfriend.  Zach would totally ship Kon/Tim if he wasn't so personally invested in shipping Zach/Tim instead.  Tim thinks that when he squints his eyes and tilts his head, he can sort of see the solution.</p>
<p>"Please," Zatara entreated, tired and disdainful, "do not attempt to convince me that there is nothing romantic about you holding Tim as you fly together through a starlit sky."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The problem wasn't that Kon wanted to be Tim's boyfriend, it was just that he was used to being Tim's _guy._   He was Tim's shoulder to lean on, his middle of the night phone call when Gotham had him strung too tight. The person who could stand with his arm around Tim at a team meeting without a reason, just because it felt right to be standing that close. He'd gotten used to giving him Super Hugs, first when he was feeling down and then just all the time. Maybe the intimacy in their friendship was a little easy for other people to misunderstand, if they didn't know better. 

It was all so normal for them - the _new_ normal anyway, since Kon had come back - right up there with dynamic teasing, high-fives and kicking evil in its face.  It was just _them._  
  
Only Tim's boyfriend didn't see it that way.  
  
"Please," Zatara entreated, tired and disdainful, "do not attempt to convince me that there is nothing romantic about you holding Tim as you fly together through a starlit sky."  He sneered in a way that would make Ravager proud, contorting his handsome face until he was almost ugly.  "It's like something out of a Disney film. The _good_ ones."  
  
"Superman and Batman have done it," Kon dredged up sheepishly.  
  
"Yes, and if popular speculations are correct then they have also done _it,"_ he snipped.  
  
He took a deep breath and tried to remember that his _best friend_ used to put his foot down and get snappy with him too.  Zatara made him wonder if this was what Tim would have been like if his bitchier side hadn't been tempered by friends who called him out on it, but this was about the point where Kon always had to think, _Why this jerk?  Why couldn't Tim be dating someone like Bart or Jaime or even a civilian from his school?  Zatara is such a -_  
  
"He was just bringing me home to you," Tim placated as he came out from the bathroom in their shared room at the Tower, fresh out of the shower and only wearing a green towel around his waist.  He came up beside Zatara the World's Biggest Pain in the Ass and wrapped an arm around him, tucking himself against his side like he just belonged there (as if they hadn't only been together for a few _months,_ give him a _break)._   "Say 'thank you' and let it go."  
  
"No," the idiot refused, pouting like a little kid.  
  
"Catching a ride with Kon was faster than coming out by jet."  Tim frowned up at the guy and Kon felt a shot of gratitude that he really wasn't moving in on his best friend, because if Tim gave him more looks like that he'd be wrapped around his little finger inside a week.  "I was covered in filth from wading through a disaster zone.  It was my idea to take the quickest route to our room as possible.  I've been getting lifts from Kon since I was thirteen," he stressed, "and they're probably going to continue until I'm thirty."  
  
"What happens then?" Kon had to ask, even as he was mentally slapping the words _so there_ all over Zatara's stupid pretty jerk face.  
  
Tim looked at him and smiled easily.  "I'll retire."  
  
"Yeah, right," Kon dismissed with an easy smirk.  "Bats might quit but you always come back."  
  
"You'll see," Tim said smugly, looking like a man with a plan.  
  
"I'll _see_ you swinging your cane at the bad guys when you're in your nineties, Rob."  
  
"As long as I get to my nineties, I don't care."  
  
"You _will,"_ Zatara spoke up, looking at Tim like he was scolding him for something.  
  
Tim just gave a little wavery smile and swung their hands a bit, tightening his grasp.  
  
When had they started holding hands?

Sometimes, he thought Tim was under a love spell.  That made it easier to understand how the neurotic, prickly, touch-shy Robin he'd grown up with was able to melt so completely against someone new.  Someone who wasn't him or Bart or Cassie.

It was better than remembering that Tim had needed to learn how to get close to people again while Kon was - gone.  
  
"Thank you for getting Tim home safely, Superboy," Zatara offered woodenly, looking bored.   
  
Kon knew it pained him to say it and he was glad.  "I always do," he said, not caring how obnoxious he sounded even when Tim's eyes narrowed at him in warning.  
  
The magician's answering smile was really just a baring of teeth.  The _'Goodnight'_ he gritted out left it close to a snarl.

One World's Most Annoying Magician successfully wound up, check.  
  
"See you tomorrow."  He started down the hall but stopped after a few feet to turn around and throw out, "Don't forget we're going out to do that thing in the morning, Tim," a lot more suggestively than he needed to.  
  
Oh yeah, if Tim's annoyed glare was anything to go by he'd be in trouble later.  But Zatara just rolled his eyes like he knew it was all B.S. and shut the door before they could start a bickering war with each other.  Well yeah, if Kon had someone with a body like Tim's standing next to him in nothing but a towel he wouldn't be wasting time either.  
  
Making his way down to the gym to see who he could help or bother, his superhearing picked up the smartass asking,"Do I even want to know what you and your private jet service are doing tomorrow?"  
  
"Surveillance," Tim responded, and he heard the thump of a wet bath towel falling to the floor.  
  
Kon covered his ears until he was sure he was totally tuned out from his focus on their voices, not wanting to hear what would come next.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh hell, this was how Tim ended up infatuated with everyone he knew, wasn't it?

Zach got into bed as Tim hid his perfect body beneath a set of black and yellow Batman pajamas. There was no greater guarantee that they would behave and go straight to sleep than for Tim to cover himself in the Bat symbol; it brought up too many mood-killing, threatening lectures about responsibility and treating Robin right _or else_ to not be effective.  
  
Ever-fascinated with the curiosities of Tim Drake's brilliant yet baffling mind, he had to ask, "Do you really not see why I would take issue with you _riding_ someone home?"

To him it was obvious - bordering on a dirty fantasy - but somehow, riding through the sky atop beautiful people with incredible bodies had been written off in Tim's mind as something _innocent,_ like a child playing piggyback.  
  
"I do get rewarded for making you jealous," Tim offered flippantly, but he went to their dresser and picked up a notepad to write something else down.  
  
Zach had stopped questioning Tim's constant paranoia that their conversations were being monitored less than a month into dating him. Besides, Superboy could very well be eavesdropping for entertainment even if Oracle wasn't.  
  
He handed Zach the notebook before pulling back the covers and getting into bed with a little sigh of pleasure at the comfort of getting under their blankets at the end of a long day. At the top of the paper he'd written, _You don't mind when it's Cassie._  
  
_Cassie's a girl,_ he thought first, but no, whatever else had happened between them he knew that Tim had loved the hell out of Stephanie Brown. _You're not in love with Cassie,_ he wrote instead, and passed the book back.  
  
Tim gave him a Look, left eyebrow raised as high as it could go, a small half-smirk on his lips and mocking disbelief in his eyes which sang out, _You're not serious, are you? Really?_  
  
Well, alright. He'd been the fifth wheel fighting his way through the Cassie, Tim, Kon and Bart love fest long enough to know that they were all at least a _little_ in love with each other.  
  
Tim took the pen back and made two lines under what was already written.  
  
_You don't mind when it's Cassie._  
  
_You're not in love with Cassie  
_

Zach caught his meaning even though he could hardly believe it.  Zach didn't mind when it was Cassie because Zach wasn't in love with Cassie - as if he were in love with _Kon?_

"Not funny.  I'm in love with _you,"_ he chided him with a harmless jab of the blunt end of the pen. _I don't even like SB,_ he hastily scribbled.  
  
Tim raised both eyebrows, unimpressed. He wrote two words and held up the notebook for Zach to read, _Why not?_  
  
"He always has his hands on you," Zach threw out from the top of his head, too frustrated to care about eavesdroppers. "I feel like he's just waiting for me to screw up so he can swoop in and fly you away."  
  
"Lots of people invade my personal space bubble," Tim said quietly, cozying down under the comforter as if there was nothing to get so worked up over. "Bart, Jason, Cassie, Steph, Cass, Rose..."  
  
"Dick," Zach supplied, filling in the obvious blank with a roll of his eyes.  
  
"And you still think I have a crush on him-"  
  
"You do," he insisted out of habit. At first he'd thought it was the man's legendary ass, then his blinding smile before finally he had heard the breathless wonder in Tim's voice when he told the story of how he discovered the first Robin's identity as a child and Zach worked out that it was an _old_ crush, the sort that started so purely that it had burned bright and could never go away completely.  Loving Dick Grayson was simply going to remain a part of who Tim was. It was as basic as _Tim protects the Batman_ and _Tim enjoys spy games_.  
  
"-but you don't mind how close we are," Tim finished, as if that were a point.  
  
"Well, he's _legally_ your brother," he deflected.  "The press would have a field day."  Truthfully, the only reason he had stopped minding was that he'd witnessed one of their more _minor_ arguments (as defined by Tim) and realized there was too much baggage between them for anything to ever happen. The odds of the Big Bird stealing Zach's Little Bird were simply too low to matter.  
  
Kon-El, on the other hand, was prime boyfriend-stealing material. With his hugely muscled, perfect Superbody and his witty jokes, honest smiles and gentle hands, he was potentially a serious problem. A problem who constantly touched Tim, who had a deep history with him and told him 'I love you' without needing to add in an awkward brofist in order to make the declaration more masculine.

Before Tim he hadn't been the jealous sort.  But before Tim there were a lot of faces without names who he'd never been so invested in holding on to.

He was startled out of his sulking over Kon's attractiveness when the notebook was dropped into his lap. The bed shifted as Tim pointedly rolled to face away from him, closing his eyes in a clear message: End of Discussion.  He'd been awake since the day before, so once his head was on the pillow it was likely he'd win by virtue of falling dead asleep in seconds.  
  
Zach snorted at his method of getting the last word before reading the page.  
  
_Bart says he likes us._  
  
"Bart?" he blurted out, shocked at the sudden switch of tracks from Tim's obviously crushing best friend to his funny little brother figure.  Of course Zach was growing fond of him, Bart was mischievous and adorable but - oh hell, this was how Tim ended up infatuated with _everyone_ he knew, wasn't it?  
  
"Kon," Tim corrected.  
  
"What? Wait, no, Bart says KON-" he stopped himself, but not before Tim could bolt up and slap a hand over his mouth anyway.  
  
"Yes," he said impatiently, glaring. He took his hand away slowly, watching for any further signs of an outburst that might catch the wrong ears.  
  
"Oh," Zach said dumbly, and watched as the tension started to drain from Tim at the mellow response.  
  
He smiled slightly at whatever look was in Zach's eyes and only commented with, "Exactly," before laying back down.  
  
_Exactly what?_ Zach didn't ask, because he thought he might know and also thought he didn't want to know and Tim deserved his sleep and he really, really needed to think because his stomach had just flipped over the thought of Superboy wanting _him._

Which couldn't be true.  Although he didn't exactly _loathe_ the Boy of Steel, he was fairly certain of Superboy's enmity towards him.  
  
The greatest issue in the equation of Tim + Kon was that he knew it wouldn't balance without subtracting one Zachary Zatara.  Of all the other people who Tim could have chemistry with, Kon was the one who approved of him least. Their rapport had gone from nearly civil - what passed as polite caution for Zach - to bitingly contentious within a few months. He had _wanted_ to get along with him - snubbing your new boyfriend's beloved best friend was very poor strategy - but more than a few minutes of conversation normally led them to each other's throats. Which hadn't seemed very sexually charged at the _time..._

Tim wouldn't have said something if he didn't believe that Bart was onto something.

If Zach wasn't painfully aware of what a catch Kon was, he'd be a lot less bothered by him.  
  
He _did_ enjoy winding Superboy up a little too much. And there was a certain heat which came from confronting someone so physically powerful, finding a power on his own side which came from knowing that no matter how he pushed him, Kon's self-restraint and care with others meant Zach was _safe_ to mouth off.

"Turn off the light?" Tim prompted without opening his eyes.

He did, settling down to wrap an arm around Tim's waist, press a goodnight kiss to his neck and shamelessly steal half of his favorite pillow.  He felt the need to stay close lest Tim forget which teammate he was still dating.  
  
Two minutes of pondering later he whispered out of nowhere, "He's a giant. Where would we even put him?"  
  
"'Ere's room," Tim murmured sleepily, and Zach realized that he was trying to stay awake for a conversation after nearly thirty hours of wakefulness.  
  
"Never mind, we'll talk it out at - home in Gotham.  Oh."

"Mm?"  
  
"I still have an apartment in Metropolis. The lease isn't up yet."  It was due to expire in six weeks.  He'd given up on the city months before and now Zach spent most of his off-road time in Gotham or at the Tower so he had meant to let it go.  
  
"Hm."

"You knew that," Zach accused, shifting his plans experimentally.  There were so many 'ifs' but _if_ they wanted to pester someone in Metropolis, this was a good window.  And if something less than a disaster occurred perhaps he'd want to renew the lease after all.  
  
"Love you?" Tim appealed, instead of a proper, 'I'm sorry for initiating a discussion on the possibility of a threesome with the man you're jealous of with a mental timer already ticking.'  
  
"I love you too," he answered.  That part of his life he was sure of.


End file.
